The Honourable Woman, Likely Dishonorable

An Aussie immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave is founder and managing editor of Israellycool, one of the world's most popular pro-Israel blogs (and the one you are currently reading)
He is a happy family man, and a lover of steak, Australian sports and girlie drinks

Maggie Gyllenhaal is coming to small screen with “The Honourable Woman”. The Academy Award-nominated actress is set to star on the Sundance Channel miniseries, which is described as a fast-paced thriller set against an international political backdrop.

On the eight-part drama, the sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal will play Nessa Stein, the daughter of a Zionist arms procurer who as a child witnessed his assassination. As an adult, she inherits her father’s company and dramatically inverts its purpose from supplying arms to laying high-spec data cabling networks between Israel and the West Bank.

Now in her thirties, her sudden appointment to the House of Lords, apparently due to her tireless promotion of projects for reconciliation between the Israelis and Palestinians, creates an international political maelstrom.

“I couldn’t put the scripts down. Nessa is such an exciting and intricate character. I can’t wait to begin filming,” Gyllenhaal says of her new project, which has BAFTA winner Hugo Blick attached to direct and write the script. Blick will also serve as the executive producer alongside Greg Brenman, with Abi Bach on board to produce.

Sundance Channel president Sarah Barnett gushes, ” ‘The Honourable Woman’ is scintillating drama: It is both a tightly plotted international political thriller and a superbly wrought character piece about hope, compromise, guilt and families.” It will be filmed on location in the U.K., Middle East and America starting July, and set to air in 2014.

Especially if Gyllenhaal’s real-life views have dictated her decision to join the project.

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